Burt Shavitz, the World’s Most Famous Retired Beekeeper

Burt Shavitz, a founder of Burt’s Bees and the subject of the documentary “Burt’s Buzz,” enjoys a life of seclusion on his property in northern Maine.Credit
Jody Shapiro

In the new documentary “Burt’s Buzz,” Burt Shavitz, a founder of the cosmetics company Burt’s Bees, reveals himself to be the ultimate homebody.

“A good day is when no one shows up and you don’t have to go anywhere,” he tells the camera, looking exactly like the drawing of the bearded old hippie that adorns the packages of lip balm and other natural beauty products. Another piece of hermit wisdom: “I’m less interested in the inside of whatever it is I own than on the outside of what it sits on.” Or, as he reiterates later, “Land is everything.”

The film traces Mr. Shavitz’s unlikely rise to cultural icon and, like its subject, is full of surprises. For instance, he worked for years as a photojournalist in New York City before moving to Maine and becoming a beekeeper. Also, he no longer has equity in the company that bears his name, having sold his portion shortly before Burt’s Bees was sold for hundreds of millions of dollars. (The company compensates him for the use of his image and employs him to be a brand ambassador, a living mascot.)

No matter. Mr. Shavitz, 79, maintains that he had “no desire to be an upper mobile rising yuppie,” and his living situation proves it: For decades he’s been in a string of modest houses, including his current one, in northern Maine, with no running hot water. He heats by wood stove. His companions are dogs.

A. My folks had taken me to Maine at a relatively early age. We’d gone to a place called Sebago Lake. It was like the Garden of Eden. I had started swimming as a very young child. There were all these lakes, ponds and streams, and zero restrictions. I promised myself that one day I was going to come back. That’s what I did.

When I got here I had no place to live and not a great deal of money. But I had good neighbors and everybody had leftover lumber that was just lying around to build a camp. I had large windows that I got from the dump, from which I could watch the moon go across the sky at night. I had a horsehair mattress that I had brought from New York. If electricity went out, didn’t make a bit of difference. I had a candle. I was in a good place.

What’s your current setup?

I’ve got 40 acres. And it’s good and sufficient and it takes good care of me. There’s no noise. There’s no children screaming. There’s no people getting up at 5 o’clock in the morning and trying to start their car and raising hell. Everybody has their own idea of what a good place to be is, and this is mine.

You can afford the basic comforts of home, yet you don’t have running hot water and you heat by wood stove. Why?

I’ve got a radio that occasionally I listen to. It’s portable. It’s got an antenna. I’ve put a piece of aluminum foil on it that gives me a little bit better reception. And a refrigerator.

Your life in Maine sounds very different from your time as a photojournalist in New York City.

Precisely. Being able to walk outdoors anytime I want to and go anywhere I want to, and only God knows what I’m going to meet in the woods and brambles. We had seven or eight fox puppies come out of the woods. They were only 20 feet away. I laid down on the ground and I called them like I would a puppy dog. And they came closer and closer. It was quite a rush.

Do you still keep bees?

No, I don’t. I’d still be keeping bees if I didn’t have a bad back. You can only punish your body so long before you’re stuck with a horrendous inability to do things you’d previously been able to do.

It was a godsend. Manna out of the heavens. The fact that there was a man who was patient, knowledgeable and even-tempered to teach me beekeeping was another plus. He told me to stand back and watch what he did. He showed me how to use the tools. I’ve been extremely fortunate for an entire lifetime — as long as I wasn’t in urban America.

A version of this article appears in print on July 17, 2014, on Page D2 of the New York edition with the headline: A Hive of Limited Activity. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe